Digital currency

The price of bitcoin, the world's best-known cryptocurrency, has smashed through $5,000 to a new all-time high.

Bitcoin is now trading at $5,186 compared with $966 at the start of the year. The digital currency has soared 750% in the past year, and is now worth four times as much as an ounce of gold.

Have you visited Showtime’s website recently? If so, you may be a cryptocurrency miner. An observant Twitter user was the first to sound an alarm last month that the source code for the Showtime Anytime website contained a tool that was secretly hijacking visitors’ computers to mine Monero, a Bitcoin–like digital currency focused on anonymity.

The price of Bitcoin has plummeted in the last three days after the virtual currency hit record levels, according to The Telegraph.co.uk.

Values of other cryptocurrencies such as Ethererum and Ripple have also plunged, wiping billions off their combined values.

All eyes are currently pointed at Bitcoin because the cryptocurrency divided in two, reports Profit.bg

A US jury indicted a Russian man on Wednesday as the operator of a digital currency exchange he allegedly used to launder more than $4 billion for people involved in crimes ranging from computer hacking to drug trafficking.

Kosovo will soon become the 57th country in the world - and the first in the Balkan region - to operate a virtual money ATM, according to Albvision Ltd, the company that delivered the machine.

In a press release distributed in Kosovo and Albania on July 17, the company said that Tirana and Skopje will be the next two destinations where these kinds of ATMs will be placed. 

Cryptocurrency investors have suffered heavy losses following a dramatic drop in the price of Bitcoin and Ethereum in recent days.

Bitcoin fell to around $1,863 and Ethereum to around $133 over the weekend - 38 percent and 67 percent off their all-time high respectively. Bitcoin, in particular, suffered heavy losses since hitting a high of $3,018 on June 12.

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British multinational bank Barclays has been in discussions with regulators about bringing digital currencies like bitcoin into service, CNBC reported citing the bank's UK chief executive Ashok Vaswani.

After soaring nearly 65 percent in the last month, the digital currency bitcoin smashed the historic $2,000 mark on Saturday. The total market cap of the asset has likewise climbed to $32.92 billion.

The cryptocurrency has reached a new high on Monday, trading at $2,167.24 as of 10:15 am GMT.

The world's most popular cryptocurrency continues to set historic highs this week. Bitcoin cracked the $1500 barrier on Thursday.

Bitcoin was trading at $1,515 against the US dollar at 2:00pm GMT, retreating from the day's high of $1,544.43, according to the CoinDesk price index. The digital currency has gained more than 32 percent during the past two weeks.